Why Tony Blair has been a disaster

I was wondering the other day if I was unfair on Tony Blair. After all, there have been some good things happen since he came to power and he is still preferable to Michael Howard.

But there is too much on the wrong side of the balance sheet, things like:

1) He doesn't seem to have any guiding principles. You may have disagreed with everything Margaret Thatcher stood for but you still knew what she stood for. Not so Blair, whose views will change at the sight of a focus group graph. How can you within a matter of weeks be Bill Clinton's best friend and pushing the third way and then George W Bush's best friend with a neo-con agenda?

2) While claiming to care about the underprivileged, he has allowed the gap between rich and poor to widen.

3) Rupert Murdoch thinks he's OK

4 He lied to justify the Iraq war, a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and achieved nothing. Are we willing to pay such a price in lives and instability to rid the world of a tryant? If it's such a good idea, would he advocate doing it again?

5) He justifies draconian reductions in civil liberties in the name of the war on terror, yet as he has shown in Ireland, terrorism is better tackled by addressing the causes. Military action didn't stop the killing in Ireland, diplomacy did. Eventually you have to talk to people.

6) Cash for peerages. The House of Lords has so little power, even less than the post 1977 House of Commons, so you might as well sell peerages but let the money go to the country not the labour party. Or, more seriously, let's have an independently appointed upper house whose members' qualifications we can all understand, and let them use their expertise to make better the legislation of professinal politicians, who are increasingly out of touch with real people.

7) He has left those of us who want a fairer society with no one to vote for

8) He never says 'I was wrong' or 'I'm sorry'

9) He never gives a straight answer to a straight question

10) He claims to care about Africa yet squanders on his unnecessary war £5bn that would make a massive difference if used for good in that continent. And what is he doing about Mugabe?

11) He has an almost 19th century view of Britain's position in the world.

12) He believes we need a nuclear deterrent but no one else should have one (except of course Dubya). Either that means we are at greater risk because of his policies or he just has delusions of power. If the world is so insecure that Britain needs a nuclear deterrent, then why not Spain or Holland or Germany or any of the other non nuclear European countries? Why not Iran, whose unfriendly near neighbour Israel has one? Why not Australia or Malaysia or Japan? Why not everyone?

13) I don't think he reads books

14) He's still here, not because he's doing anything worthwhile, but because he wants to reach ten years as PM. How pathetic is that?

15) In 1997 he led us to believe a better Britain was possible but he hasn't delivered.

Saltaire Sam